So I’m in the middle of applying for grad schools (Marine biology, hopefully PhD), 3.5 GPA, 325 GRE, 4+years of research experience. Had interview with several professors at 2 schools, and most seem pretty positive. However, they all tend to be saying that they’d all take me IF i had funding. I was told in undergrad that most people don’t apply for the big (NSF, EPA STAR, ect) grants/fellowships until they’re in their 1st year of grad school. I’m too late for most of those applications now, but I will be applying next year, whether I get accepted somewhere this year or not. At UH I’ve had 1 prof say I’m a good candidate for a GTA-ship (which would really solve this problem) but another school doesn’t have a TA program.
Essentially,
Is it worth in to complete the application for a school that I’m about 90% sure won’t accept me this year because I have no funding opportunities?
If I apply this year and am not accepted, will it hurt my chances of being accepted next year?
If I apply for the fellowships next year, I still won’t know if I won any until after next year’s grad school applications are due. I’m not quite following how it would help to have applied for the fellowship but not received it yet for the school application, and if I get the fellowship but no schools take me that year because it wasn’t guaranteed I’d think that I’d lose the fellowship.
It’s quite possible that you are misunderstanding these professors - they probably mean if they had funding for you. As in, the funding situation is precarious or uncertain right now - which it often is in December of the year before you start. Most STEM programs (and most reputable PhD programs in general) fund at least some students using internal funding - a combination of graduate school fellowships and PIs’ own research grants. In any case
Yes, because you can’t actually be 90% sure a school won’t accept you. Unless those professors explicitly told you that you are not competitive without funding, you should still apply.
No.
What you would do is when you get the fellowship you notify the programs you applied to of the fellowship. At that point, it’ll be late March/early April - you may have heard back from some programs, probably most programs, but sometimes being a fellowship recipient can change an admissions decision. In either case, winning a prestigious fellowship but not getting into graduate school is pretty rare - if you are a good enough candidate to win a fellowship, you are a good enough candidate to get into at least one PhD program.
Thank you so much! I think I’ve really just been freaking myself out (the joys of anxiety) given that the response from the professors at this school was so much less optimistic than the others schools I’ve spoke to, and due to the fact that it’s the first application due. I was feeling OK about it until I met with the one professor there yesterday that would actually sit down with me and she kinda blew me off. I know I shouldn’t let one person screw my head over so badly. Thanks again
You are in biology and so you can expect to have a TA position for the first year or two and even beyond sometimes. These positions are not administered by faculty so you need to apply and let the department decide if you are good enough to be admitted with support.
